Costume changes

I’m sure it’s purely coincidental that a recent revelation about costume changes for one of my characters in The Sleep of Reason came to me the day before Halloween.

I don’t want to give away salient details about the plot or even the motifs I am using, but it occured to me yesterday that one of my supporting characters could make appearances in the novel dressed in elaborate ways — different ways each time. The protagonist could chuckle to himself about these eccentricities in the other character, but later he would find that it makes a kind of horrible sense.

In addition to giving me more chances to “show, not tell” (which I’ve mentioned once or twice in this blog), I realized that not only would this costume changing support the overt activities of the plot, but it would also allow the protagonist to have a dawning understanding of the trouble he is in. When he comes to see why the other character dresses in such elaborate ways, he will begin to see the extent of a third character’s control over all who come in contact with him.

But I’ve said enough.

I’m delighted when these kinds of revelations come to me. It’s part of that creative process of mine that I don’t want to know too much about (lest I slay it with analysis). Still, it would have been nice to have had this particular idea in mind when I began writing the story rather than getting it now when I’m at the half way point and will need to go back and make additions here and there. But writing is rewriting, as they say!